


o let me have thee whole

by lowriseflare, threeguesses



Series: You are always new [2]
Category: When Calls the Heart (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6151474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowriseflare/pseuds/lowriseflare, https://archiveofourown.org/users/threeguesses/pseuds/threeguesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So,” Jack says, standing across their brand-new bedroom on the very first night of their marriage. “Here we are.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	o let me have thee whole

**Author's Note:**

> Of course we were going to write the wedding night(s). Sorry for perverting your wholesome Christian show, Hallmark! Title is from Keats, _To Fanny_.

“So,” Jack says, standing across their brand-new bedroom on the very first night of their marriage. “Here we are.”

Elizabeth almost laughs, but only to avoid some other, less desirable reaction. Instead, she swallows thickly. “Here we are,” she agrees. It’s a beautiful room, one he obviously took great care in designing, warm wood and a soft rag rug in front of the fireplace. The bed is covered in the wedding quilt Clara made them, pieced in a triangle pattern, blues and greens.

The bed. _Their_ bed. The one they’re presumably about to get into, together. Elizabeth tries to stop looking at it, and can’t.

Jack crosses the room to the water pitcher, avoiding her eyes. “Do you want some?” he asks. He looks powerfully nervous, for which Elizabeth is grateful. When it came time to carry her over the threshold, he had to wipe his palms on his red serge jacket before reaching for her.

“Yes, please.” There was wine at the wedding party, and what felt like endless dancing, jigs and four-handed reels, long out of fashion in Hamilton and terribly energetic besides. Her mouth tastes sour and tart.

Jack hands her the same cup he drank from, tin with a bent rim. Elizabeth supposes this is what marriage is then, shared cutlery and a shared bed. Lord, she hadn’t intended to be frightened. It’s just Jack.

Jack, she thinks with some wonder. Her _husband_.

Elizabeth clutches the cup with both hands, strangely bereft in a way she hasn’t felt since she first ventured out west—which is ridiculous, considering not six hours ago she was joined for all eternity with the man she loves. Still, abruptly she misses her sisters. She thinks of them tucked away underneath eiderdown comforters in their rooms above the saloon, gossiping into the dark. Mother and Father had expected the wedding to be out east, but Elizabeth had insisted on Hope Valley in deference to Jack and their life together here, and she’s glad for it now. If nothing else, it was worth it for the look on Viola’s face when she saw the privy.

Jack takes a deep breath, clearing his throat. “Elizabeth,” he says, taking the empty cup and setting it back down on the dresser. He curls his hands around her upper arms. “It’s a beautiful dress,” he says, which of course he told her earlier but it’s nice to hear it again, quietly, now when it’s just the two of them. “You look beautiful in it.”

“Thank you.” Most women in Hope Valley would simply have gotten married in their best Sunday dress but Elizabeth had hers made special, even though doing so wasn’t strictly in the best of taste. Her one nod to local custom was allowing Abigail to pin a small hand-knit pouch to her petticoats containing scraps of bread, wood, and silk. It’s supposed to bring them wealth and luck.

Elizabeth, personally, feels like she could use a little luck.

Jack touches her hair, bound up in an intricate knot and covered with pearl-woven netting. “This too,” he says. “I think you're the prettiest bride this town’s ever seen. I’m almost afraid to touch you.”

“Jack,” Elizabeth murmurs. He’s looking at her the same way he has been all evening, wide-open wonderment, so sincere and complete it makes him look like a little boy. At the reception, Tom got together a group of rowdy young men and dragged him outside to parade him through the streets on a rail, yelling increasingly specific taunts. Her parents were horrified, but Elizabeth found herself having to look away from his pink face for reasons that weren’t embarrassment, not quite.

“Do you want more water?” Jack asks, a little helplessly, and Elizabeth reaches for his face and kisses him.

 

 

The first person Elizabeth tried to ask about her wedding night was Viola. It was the evening the Thatchers had arrived in Hope Valley, nearly a week ago now. Abigail had prepared a welcome dinner, and Elizabeth had had enough wine to feel brave.

Viola, however, had drunk none. “Gracious, Elizabeth,” she said once Elizabeth had worked up to the question, sounding more scandalized than Elizabeth thought was really necessary, given the circumstances. They were sitting at the table in Elizabeth’s house, the woodstove burning cheerfully. She’d already begun to pack for her move. “What a thing to ask.”

Elizabeth huffed a breath out, embarrassed. “I’m not asking you to tell me anything intimate about your own relationship, Viola. I’m simply asking if you might—”

That was when her parents walked in.

Elizabeth tried Abigail herself next, several days later. “I hope you won’t think this is terribly forward of me,” she began, picking a muffin to crumbs at a cafe table. “But I wondered if I might ask you a question.”

Abigail took it better than Viola, drawing Elizabeth into the privacy of the kitchen and shooing Clara away to fetch more molasses from the mercantile. “Why don’t you tell me what you know,” she said, clasping Elizabeth’s hands in her warm rough palms. Elizabeth stuttered through an explanation of what she had cobbled together from biology textbooks and gossip.

“Well, that’s basically right,” Abigail said, patting her arm and putting the kettle on for a fresh pot of tea. “Try not to be frightened. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as everyone says.”

Elizabeth covered her squeak with a cough.

She tried books next, poring over the same biology textbooks all over again, then medical manuals and then then, finally and desperately, a treatise on botany. But there was no more information than what she had already, nothing specific, and nothing at all about how to behave.

Finally she tried inspecting herself with a hand mirror at bath time, twisting and turning in the galvanized wash tub until the water was cold and she was even more thoroughly confused than before. It was no use. She simply couldn’t picture what was supposed to happen.

“You know what to expect tonight, right Elizabeth dear?” her mother said imperiously as they were pinning on her veil, in a tone the brooked no argument. Elizabeth gulped and promised she did. She’d traveled across the country on her own into barely tamed wilderness, had she not? She’d survived highway robbers, been held at gunpoint, and learned to milk a cow on a homestead in the middle of the woods. Surely she could navigate her own wedding night.

Surely.

 

 

It’s just Jack, she reminds herself now as he kisses her—carefully, she can't help but notice, his strong hands moving from her arms to her rib cage to pull her close. He smells like wool and woods and skin. Elizabeth closes her eyes and tries to relax, to kiss him back like she has so many times before. Perhaps she's worrying about nothing. After all, she's felt any number of sensations in clinches with Jack up until now, and none of them have ever approximated pain.

But then he pulls back, clears his throat. “Shall we—” He nods vaguely in the direction of the bed.

“Oh,” Elizabeth says stupidly, as if the thought has just occurred to her, as if she hadn't even noticed that particular piece of furniture before. “Ah—”

“We can take our time,” Jack says quickly. “We certainly don't have to—” He breaks off.

But they do have to, don't they? They have to do...whatever it is they’re about to do. Elizabeth nods. She feels awkward with him suddenly, shy, like back when he first kissed her and she knew they were both wondering if it would happen again. Which is absurd considering how forward she’s been with him lately, bordering on improper. But that was then, and this now, and they are man and wife.

It’s warm in the room, thick with the scent of cinquefoil and paintbrush and larkspur. Clara and some of the other women festooned bunches of it over the doorways when they delivered the quilt, the homesteaders' version of a bridal shower. The icebox is full of a week’s worth of food, courtesy of Abigail, and Elizabeth’s hope chest is filled to bursting with new quilts and aprons and linens. The message of all this hospitality is almost embarrassingly clear: there is nothing for her and Jack to do in these next few days but be together.

“Let’s get into bed,” Elizabeth says, too abruptly, and bites her bottom lip. She expects Jack to tease but instead he nods wordlessly, sitting on the edge of their bed to take off his boots. He looks more nervous than she does. He’s in full, formal uniform for the wedding, black boots with spurs instead of his usual brown. Elizabeth thinks he looks quite fine.

She watches as he strips off his thick woolen socks, his feet long and clean and pale against the rug. It occurs to Elizabeth that she’s never seen them before, never even wondered about them, and all at once it seems patently ludicrous that she bonded herself for life to a man without having any idea as to the condition of his feet. For heaven’s sake, what if he’d been missing all his toes? Even as she's thinking this she recognizes that she’s trying to distract herself from the larger and more terrifying truth, which is, of course, she’s never seen _most_ of him before, and now—well. She grips the bedpost and ducks her head so he won’t see her blushing, bending to unbuckle her own heeled wedding shoes.

But: “Let me,” Jack says quietly. “I mean, if that’s—?”

Elizabeth nods. “It’s all right,” she says, sitting down obediently so he can kneel and take her ankles into his lap. He makes surprisingly quick work of the tiny clasps, sliding off her shoes before slowly peeling her stockings down her legs. He presses his thumb against her naked instep, and Elizabeth shivers.

“Well,” he says, looking up at her and smiling bashfully. “We’re barefoot, at least.”

Elizabeth laughs helplessly, covering her face. “Oh, Jack. What are we going to do?” It isn’t quite the right question, but he seems to understand because he smiles too. Elizabeth reaches down and touches his head, like a queen bestowing a favor on a knight.

“Whatever you want,” he tells her, taking her hand and brushing his mouth over her knuckles. Elizabeth thinks of _please consider this an act of courtship_ , nearly two years ago now, and feels a rush of affection so strong it nearly takes out her knees.

“I want to lie down,” she says, surprising herself. Jack looks up at her with shock and undisguised delight, and she flushes. “Only, let me change into my nightgown first? I don’t want to ruin—” She breaks off, gesturing at herself. Then she realises what she’s said and feels her face flame. She’s not even sure how they would ruin it, precisely, but the idea that they _could_ makes her feel warm all over.

“Of course,” Jack says. He’s still on his knees and that’s making Elizabeth feel warm too, oddly powerful, like she’s a temple or a church or a goddess, something to genuflect before. “Whatever you want.”

They undress separately, Elizabeth in the bedroom and Jack out in the sitting room, as chaste and shy as two children. He's careful to knock before he comes back in. Elizabeth has climbed under the quilt already, is propped up against the headboard with her hands folded neatly in her lap, like she always tells her students to do once they’ve finished an assignment. Her blood is a hummingbird inside her veins, buzzing all over her body.

“Hello,” Jack says, stopping at the foot of the mattress. He’s wearing a white undershirt and loose-fitting pyjamas, the hair on his arms almost golden in the flickering lamplight. 

“Hello,” Elizabeth says. She can feel a dangerous laugh bubbling up inside her. Not at him—there’s nothing funny about him, about his pale freckled shoulders or the gentle slope of muscle in his arms—but a laugh nonetheless. She bites the inside of her cheek.

Jack nods at the mattress. “May I—?”

“Of course,” Elizabeth says, and then he’s climbing in beside her and this is it, they are in this bed together. Now she really does laugh, a slightly hysterical giggle. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry, I’m so nervous.”

“It’s all right,” Jack soothes. “I’m nervous too.” He cups her face with both hands, his palms hot and a little damp. Elizabeth’s heart is knocking against her breastbone like a trapped thing.

“Let’s lie back,” she says, on the vague idea that putting on a brave face will help. Jack looks surprised but he follows her lead, both of them scooting awkwardly down the bed until her head hits the pillow. His face is so very serious.

“And now—” She reaches for him, his bare shoulders and his good strong arms. They’ve done this before too but it's different without her corset and petticoats, her nightgown hitching up slightly at his intrusion and her bare legs and ankles rubbing against the soft fabric of his pyjamas. That strange, half-familiar heavy feeling starts to settle over her body, like being weighed down by river rocks.

“Is this all right?” Jack whispers, hovering above her with his forearms on the pillow. Elizabeth nods, speechless, and reaches up to touch his proud mouth. He has such a lovely face, oddly patrician for a Mountie, long nose and those kind, steady eyes. She wonders which of them their children will favour.

“Forgive me, but I don’t know how to—” She pauses, frustrated at her lack of words for this, this thing between them in dark. When she was small her father used to say she ate knowledge, and now she’s a school teacher who can give instruction in arithmetic and grammar and geography, and yet here she is in her marriage bed with nothing in her brain. “—To begin,” she finishes, flushing crossly.

“With a kiss, I think,” Jack says, and leans down to bestow one. And that’s fine, that’s good, but Elizabeth _knows_ that part already and she’s impatient for what comes next. He’s still hovering over her, his knees inside hers and his weight on one elbow. Elizabeth can feel all the places they are touching with acute, exquisite clarity, like all of her consciousness has devoted itself to physical sensation. She twists away from his mouth, fisting her hands in his hair.

“Yes, but Jack, how do we—” She breaks off with a frustrated trill in the back of her throat.

Jack actually  _laughs_ at her, the nerve of him, but the look in his eyes is gentle. “We’ll puzzle it out together, how about?”

Elizabeth nods. She likes that he isn’t pretending to know everything. She watches with interest as he leans back, shifting his weight and sliding one hand underneath the lacy hem of her nightgown. “Is that all right?” he asks quietly, his face gone serious again.

“Yes,” Elizabeth says, barely breathing. That heavy feeling is concentrating itself now, pooling between her legs as his palm skates upward, his finger pressing into the bend behind her knee. 

“You’re so _soft_ ,” he says, with something like wonder.

Elizabeth wants to smile, though she isn’t sure if she actually moves her mouth or not. It’s all she can do to lie still. Jack touches up along the outside of her thigh and then higher, his thumb rubbing over her hipbone. Elizabeth swallows, clutching the quilt between her sweaty fingers and looking up at the ceiling. She feels like a tuning fork. She feels like a bell. She lifts her hips without knowing she’s going to do it and then her nightgown is up around her waist and he’s just _staring_ at her, his face entirely, devastatingly open. Elizabeth closes her eyes. “Jack,” she says, and she isn’t even entirely sure what she’s asking him to do, only that she needs him to do _something_. “Please.”

“Yes.” Jack touches across her belly with soft, hesitant hands. Then suddenly he’s touching the _inside_ of her thigh with the tip of one tentative finger, searing like a brand, and just like that Elizabeth wants, _needs_ to part her legs, only surely that’s wrong, surely that's improper. She holds herself very still and prays.

“All right,” Jack says, flattening his hand and cupping her leg with the whole of his warm palm. Elizabeth nearly chokes on her own breath. “Elizabeth, is this—can I—”

“Yes,” Elizabeth gasps. She aches, her whole body, between her legs and her chest—Lord, her chest actually _hurts_.

“Right,” Jack says, and then he’s fumbling at his own waist, tugging his pants down a little. Elizabeth tips her head back and pants at the ceiling, half-afraid she’s going to die from it.

“Right,” Jack repeats, both hands on her thighs now and pressing slightly. “Elizabeth,” he says, and his voice is not his own, almost completely unrecognisable. “Elizabeth, can you open just a—”

Oh, so she is supposed to then. Elizabeth parts her legs against the pressure of his hands, feeling exposed and terribly, shamefully excited. Jack’s hands slide an inch higher up her thighs and she makes a sound, almost a whimper. She’s never made a sound like that in her whole entire life.

“All right,” Jack says, sounding strangled. He braces one forearm on the mattress beside her, his other hand doing something she can’t see down in between them. Then there’s the warm weight of his body and the hot press of his hips at her thighs and—and—

Elizabeth cries out in pain, she can’t help it, scrambling up toward the headboard like a reflex. Jack pulls back as if he’s been burned.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking positively stricken. “Elizabeth, sweetheart, I’m sorry, we can stop—”

But Elizabeth shakes her head. “No,” she says, forcing her breathing steady. She pats his shoulders a bit, wanting badly to reassure him. “It’s all right, I was just—I was startled. Keep going.”

Jack shakes his head. “Elizabeth, we don’t have to—”

“ _Jack_ ,” she says, more sharply than she means to. “Go again.”

So, Jack goes again. Slowly at first, pushing himself into her for what feels like ages, a burning ache from an inside deeper than she knew she had. Elizabeth bites her tongue. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands so she rests them on his back, just lightly. He’s dropped his face down into the shoulder of her nightgown, is holding himself very still.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs into her hairline. It sounds like he’s concentrating on something, but Elizabeth isn’t sure of what. “Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” she promises. And she is. It hurts a little, but not badly. It’s mostly just strange. Her body no longer feels like it’s about to tear itself in two with wanting, at least. Elizabeth flushes to think that perhaps this is what it wanted so desperately, Jack inside. “Are you?”

“Yes,” he pants, and it sounds like he’s gritting his teeth. Elizabeth touches him then, his hot neck and his broad back under his cotton undershirt, rubbing in soothing circles like she would for a crying child. He still hasn't lifted his head from her shoulder.

“It’s all right,” she says, because something in her is responding to his desperate voice, the strained shaking line of his body. She opens her hips a bit wider and Jack _groans_. “Jack,” she gasps, clutching at him with her arms and legs both, her knees bending. But then the stretch of it is too much, and she straightens her legs out again in a hurry.

“Can I—I want to—” Jack knocks his forehead against her collarbone, one of his hands fisted in the feather pillow under her head. His body is so hot against hers, nearly feverish. Elizabeth cups the back of his neck.

“Yes,” she says, even though she doesn't quite know what he wants, and then Jack moves _his_ hips, pushing in and out and back in again like a wave, and his breathing is so so fast, and Elizabeth just wants to take his good face between her two hands and tell him she loves him. But he still isn’t looking at her, so she turns her head and kisses his clenched jaw instead.

“ _Elizabeth_ ,” Jack gasps, his hips and his breathing speeding up both, and then suddenly he freezes, his back snapping into an arch against her. He groans once more before going boneless, like every muscle in his body has turned to sand.

Both of them are still for a long, silent moment. He’s crushing her, just the slightest bit. Elizabeth is just starting to think she’s going to have to say something when he lifts himself off her, slow and gentle, and oh, the expression on his _face—_

well. He enjoyed that, then.

“Ah,” Jack says as he rolls onto his side, huffing out that quiet, bashful laugh. “I. Thank you.”

Elizabeth almost giggles. “Jack,” she says, reaching over and pushing his damp hair out of his eyes.  She wants to tell him that she enjoyed it too, in a way, his sounds and his weight and his body. Still, “You’re welcome,” she says politely, and Jack grins.

She feels shyer than earlier, even, but he kisses her awhile longer in the darkness, covering up whatever awkwardness might fall between them. Elizabeth lets him pull her to his chest. She can hear his heart thumping steadily beneath his undershirt. It’s not long before his breathing grows even. _Are you asleep?_ she wants to ask, but that seems rude. Her thighs feel raw—all of her feels a little raw, truthfully—but as she stares at the shadows in this brand new bedroom she can’t help but notice that heavy sensation in her body again, a slow pulse beating between her legs.

“Jack?” she asks, voice muffled by his shoulder.

“Hmm?” he murmurs into her hair.

Elizabeth hesitates. “Nothing,” she says after a moment. “I love you.”

 

 

It’s not a restful night. Elizabeth has never shared a bed with anyone, save occasionally Julie when they were small, and she doesn't take to it well. It’s not Jack’s fault—he sleeps very neatly, straight arms and legs like a tin soldier. It is the sleep of someone who has always had a narrow bed. No, it’s the mere idea of another consciousness, another living and breathing soul in the room. Elizabeth lies awake and imagines his dreams.

She wants a bath badly by morning, but their cast-iron bathtub is tucked into a nook in the kitchen near the backdoor and she feels shy about using it. There’s a curtained screen, of course, but it doesn't cover everything and if he wanted to go to the woodpile or the privy he’d have to walk right by. Instead she cleans her sticky thighs with a bit of muslin dipped in the washbasin on top their dresser while Jack is out of the room, trying not to be mortified by the sharp smell.

Getting dressed is a trial too, both of them equally bashful. By unspoken agreement they stand on either side of the bed with their backs to each other, rushing to cover themselves like Adam and Eve thrown out of the garden. When Elizabeth twists to lace up her corset she catches a glimpse of him by mistake, bare back and strong legs. Afterwards, her normally-quick fingers slip three times knotting her stays.

Her family comes calling at quarter-past ten, per prearrangement, in a stagecoach Father hired special because Mother and Viola refused to ride in the heat of summer. They insisted on seeing the homestead before heading back to Hamilton, and Elizabeth agreed because privately she isn’t sure she believes that they’ll ever be back, at least not before grandchildren are born.

“Well this is...nice,” her mother pronounces, standing in Elizabeth’s sitting room that double as a parlour.

“Thank you, Mother,” Elizabeth says brightly. Jack smiles a tight, guarded smile. It's what Elizabeth thinks of as his Hamilton face, closed off and impenetrable as a mask. It makes her feel far away. She remembers how gently he spoke to her last night in their bedroom; she remembers his helpless expression in the dark. She waits until no one is looking, then catches his eye and sticks her tongue out. Jack grins.

Once her family is gone—once everyone is gone, the wedding celebrations truly over—Jack puts his hand on her arm. She thinks he might be about to kiss her, and she lifts her chin just slightly, but instead he inclines his head toward the door. “I thought I might shore up our firewood supply,” he says.

“Of course.” Elizabeth nods. It’s warm out today, nearing summer, and she suspects his sudden enthusiasm for the job is more about the need for fresh air and a moment alone than any actual fear that they’re going to freeze to death. Elizabeth understands the feeling. She could use a moment to herself, herself.

He heads outside in his shirtsleeves and suspenders, and before long she can hear the rhythmic chunking sound of axe on wood. She watches him through the window for a moment—she’s always rather enjoyed the sight of him performing this particular task—before her eyes fall on the bathtub one more time.

Hm. Elizabeth considers her options. Certainly she could be in and out before he returns, couldn’t she? The pump draws water from the well outside, with pipes running through the back boiler on the range stove for heat; she supposes she might not have time to bother about warm water, but at the very least she could scrub herself down properly. She ignores the stove and pumps cold water into the cast-iron tub, drawing the screen and fetching the soap cake. She waits until the last possible moment to undress, glancing out the window periodically.

The cool water is a relief, as is the ability to submerge herself past the waist. She’d gotten used to hip baths, first at Abigail’s and then at her own tiny house, but she has never quite forgotten the luxury of running water. She scrubs herself down quickly, face and hands and torso, then under her arms and between her legs, where she’s still just the slightest bit sore. She’s wondering whether she can get away with washing her hair when the door opens.

“Oh—” Jack’s footsteps stop and yes, Elizabeth was right, the screen doesn’t provide nearly enough cover. “I apologize, I can just—” He stumbles back toward the door. Elizabeth blushes to the roots of her hair.

“No,” she says despite herself, because that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? They’re man and wife. Modesty is beside the point. “I was just finishing.”

Jack doesn’t respond, still standing in the doorway, frozen like a deer at the edge of the woods. For some reason, that makes Elizabeth laugh.

“Oh, Jack, come in and close the door,” she tells him, reaching for the soap cake again. She can’t see his face through the screen but she can imagine, the same look her older school boys sometimes get when she leans over their slates. “I’m not going to bite.”

Jack comes, clearing his throat but saying nothing. Elizabeth flatters herself by imagining that perhaps he doesn’t trust his voice. She can hear him pouring himself a glass of water, fetching something from the icebox, and yes, he is definitely peeking. She finds herself washing her hair after all, lingering over it, raising both arms over her head to scrub.

When she’s finished she dries herself off and wrings her hair out, then dons her corset and drawers and slips her dress back over her head, leaving her stockings hanging over the side of the tub. Jack is sitting at the table with his hands curled around his water cup, pink up to the tips of his earlobes. He still hasn’t said a single word.

“That felt lovely,” Elizabeth tells him, and all right, perhaps she’s teasing him a little. Jack knows it, too; when he turns to look at her his face is like Rip’s when you send him outside to do his business in a snowstorm.

“Did it?” he asks, his voice cracking just slightly over the second syllable. He clears his throat.

Elizabeth holds his gaze and nods. “It did,” she says, then lays her hand on his warm, solid shoulder and sits herself down in his lap.

Jack’s eyes fly wide open, his whole body tensing, and for a moment Elizabeth is afraid she’s hurt him somehow, or angered him. She half thinks he’s going to dump her right off onto the floorboards. Instead he takes a long breath, wrapping his hands around her waist and shifting her down a little closer to his knees. His eyes are very dark.

“Your hair is wet,” he says, reaching out and winding a bit of it around his finger.

Elizabeth hides a smile. “Mm-hmm.” Her mother always taught her that ladies say yes and no, no substitutions, but Elizabeth is already barefoot in a man’s lap with undone hair. She might as well go the full mile.

“Elizabeth.” Jack laughs ruefully. “You’re beautiful.” From his voice, Elizabeth doesn’t necessarily think he’s referring to her beauty at this precise moment.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, bringing her face in close to his. Then, when he doesn’t move, “Jack.”

He kisses her then, and in this at least he is not polite at all, open hungry mouth and both hands fisted in her wet hair. They don't pull apart for a long time, perhaps the longest they’ve ever kissed, fitting their lips together this way and that. Elizabeth can feel herself dripping on him, her hair wetting his shirt collar and shoulders, snagging like seaweed against their flushed cheeks.

“Are you hungry?” Jack asks finally, sitting back and catching his breath. “There’s cold beef in the icebox.”

Elizabeth considers him, his earnest pink face and the way he’s not letting her sit any closer to his lap than mid-thigh. She considers their bed with its marriage quilt and what words she could speak to get him to take her there, right now when the sun isn't even near being set.

“I’ll fetch it,” she says. “Sit right here.”

 

 

The rest of the day seems very long. They go for a walk through the meadows behind the homestead; Elizabeth pages through a Bronte novel Julie left behind. For supper she heats Abigail’s chicken stew on the stovetop, trying not to wonder exactly how she’s going to manage to feed this man every night for the rest of their lives, and then finally it’s dark outside the window, the season’s first crickets singing softly in the trees.

“Would you like anything else?” Elizabeth asks as she's clearing the bowls off the table. She still feels as if she’s play-acting this role of frontier wife, reciting lines from the Founders’ Play. “A piece of cake, or some tea?”

Jack shakes his head. “I’m stuffed, thank you. Supper was delicious.”

Elizabeth smiles graciously and doesn’t remind him that she didn’t cook it. “Well,” she says, and smooths her skirt down across her thighs.

“Well,” Jack repeats. A silence descends between them. He clears his throat. “Shall we…?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth says immediately, before realising she didn’t let him finish. For all she knows he was about to suggest a game of charades. “That is…?” Without quite being able to help it, she glances toward the bedroom door.

Jack nods. “I’ll let you…” he says, gesturing her ahead of him, presumably so she can undress in private.

“You don’t have to,” Elizabeth blurts. Then, while Jack is still gaping at her, she throws oil on the fire and adds, “Come with me.” Manners, Elizabeth. “Please.”

Jack rubs a hand along the back of his head, ruffling up his hair. “I—Yes. Of course,” he says, sounding like she's given him a gift. “Whatever you wish.”

She loses some of her nerve in the bedroom, unsure of quite how forward she wants to be, and for a minute the two of them just stand together at the foot of their bed. Then Jack takes her hand. “You’ll have to tell me how to navigate your dress,” he says. “I mean, if that’s what you—”

“It unbuttons at the waist,” Elizabeth tells him, and nearly bites through her own lip to keep from saying anything more.

She’s wearing one of her better dresses, cotton gauze with lace-trimmed sleeves in honour of Mother and Father's visit; Jack carefully undoes the two fiddly buttoned straps at the gathered waist and then, at Elizabeth’s instruction, the three pearled buttons at her left shoulder. When the overlayer gapes open he pauses, and for a second Elizabeth fears he will stop altogether. But then he reaches out and draws the edges of fabric apart, helping her shrug free of the sleeves.

“Should I—”

“Just put it over the chair,” Elizabeth says, shivering in her slip. The way he’s looking at her is like nothing else in the known world.

Her slip is a simple drawstring. Elizabeth watches in fascination as Jack’s blunt fingers unknot it nimbly. He fusses with the ends of the ties for a minute before letting go, glancing up at her nervously. “And now?” he asks, even though there is only one thing left to do.

Elizabeth raises her arms overhead.

Jack swallows and lifts her slip off, leaving her standing in her chemise and corset. Elizabeth forces herself not to squirm. “Elizabeth,” Jack says, and oh, he’s just _looking_.

“Now you,” she hears herself say.

Jack laughs at that, looking down at his own shirt and trousers. “Now me?”

Elizabeth nods firmly. “Now you.”

“I’m not as nice looking as you are,” Jack warns her. Still, he unhooks his suspenders, untucking his flannel; he works his own buttons more quickly than he managed hers. When he reaches back behind him to dispense with his cotton undershirt, Elizabeth holds up a hand to stop him.

“Wait,” she says, and she sounds a lot calmer than she feels. “Let me.”

Jack holds perfectly still as she tugs the shirt up over his head, fumbling the fabric a bit in her clammy hands. His chest is broad and pale, with dark hair that tapers into a thin line below his navel and disappears into the waistband of his pants. Elizabeth feels her mouth get very dry.

Jack reaches out and puts a hand on her bare shoulder. “Turn around,” he says, his voice low and quiet, and for the first time it doesn’t sound like he’s asking.

Elizabeth is surprised, but she does what he tells her. It takes him a long moment to loosen her stays. She presses her lips together, trying to keep her breaths even, but for the first time since she first started wearing a corset, she is truly worried she’s going to faint. “Do you need—?” she asks him finally, unable to stop herself.

“I’ve got it,” Jack says softly, his voice close and patient behind her. He presses a kiss against the crook of her neck.

Oh. “Jack,” Elizabeth murmurs. When he does it again she reaches back for him without thinking, her fingers catching in his hair and holding fast. He didn’t do that hardly at _all_ last night—each time she forgets how much she likes it.

“Elizabeth.” He laughs quietly, the sound shooting down her spine. “Do you want me to do this, or do you want me to undress you?”

“Both,” Elizabeth says immediately, and the lovely thing is Jack doesn’t laugh or speak or do anything but obey, his mouth moving hot and molasses-slow over her nape for long, long moments as he unlaces the last few stays. “You can unhook it at the front now,” she says when he’s finally finished. Even to her own ears, her voice sounds dreamy and far away.

Jack turns her back around, then pauses. He’ll have to touch her chest to do it. For a moment it seems like Elizabeth will have to reach down herself, but then at last he moves, his fingers only slightly unsteady. It takes him far longer than her stays. Finally her corset comes away and she’s left standing in her cotton chemise and drawers, feeling very much nearer to nude than she did a minute ago.

But only almost. Because then Jack is pulling that last layer up over her head and it’s not the same, not even a little bit. Judging from the look on Jack’s face, it’s not the same for him either.

He reaches for her bare chest right away, then changes course at the last second and curls his hand around her waist instead. “Can I—?” he asks, breathless. Elizabeth nods. She doesn’t know how to tell him he can do whatever he’d like.

He cups her left breast gently, barely touching her. Elizabeth shivers against his palms. She wants _more,_  the ache between her legs suddenly intensifying. She wants him to handle her and not be afraid.  

“Keep kissing me,” she pleads, though it isn’t what she means, not entirely. Jack ducks his head and complies. His hand is still on her breast, just cupping, like handling fine china or holding an egg during egg toss. No one has ever touched her there before besides herself.

“I—” Jack breaks away from the kiss to stare helplessly again. “You’re so beautiful, Elizabeth, is this—does this feel—”

“Yes,” she breathes, reaching up to cover his hand with hers, because never mind how forward it is, she needs him to touch her _now_. Jack takes the encouragement like a starting pistol going off, grabbing at her with both hands. He’s almost kneading her flesh, and Elizabeth would have thought it would hurt but it doesn’t at all.

“Come here,” Jack says then, leading her towards the bed. She thinks they’re going to lie down but instead he sits on the edge, drawing her between his knees. She stumbles, swaying against him, and he takes the Lord’s name in vain. “Elizabeth, _please_ , I want to—”

He’s eye-level with her chest now. Elizabeth watches in fascination as he bends his mouth towards her, his whole face asking the question. When she nods, he takes the tip of one breast between his lips, and _oh dear God_. “Jack,” she gasps, reaching for him, her hands sliding across the back of his warm scalp. And now his mouth is pulling at her, suckling, and Elizabeth truly might be about to fall down, because nothing has ever ever felt like this before, nothing on earth.

“I want—” Jack mumbles into her skin, then doesn't finish, letting go of her briefly to fumble with the tie on her drawers. They slip over her hips and pool at her ankles before Elizabeth can even get it into her head to help him, and then all at once she's totally bare. Jack groans out loud. He fastens his mouth to her breast again immediately but now—oh, _oh—_ he’s cupping her derrière as well. No wonder no one wanted to describe this to her, Elizabeth thinks vaguely, clutching at his shoulder blades. What could they possibly _say?_

The sensation between her legs has turned slippery, so much so that Elizabeth wonders if it’s possible there's something wrong with her. She's slightly nervous Jack’s going to notice, or worse, that she’ll somehow ruin his pants. It strikes her as odd that he's still wearing them in the first place. “Jack,” she says, feeling shy to ask him—although gracious, it's a bit late for that now, isn't it? She tugs his hair until he looks up at her face, his eyes heavy lidded. “Take off—” _Everything_ , she finishes in her mind.

He has to stand up to do it, nudging her backwards just a little and working the buttons on his trousers. He shucks them quickly and stands back up in just his drawers, the cotton thin and damp and _tented—_ Elizabeth whips her eyes to his face.

He’s blushing. Elizabeth reaches out to pluck at the drawstring waist, feeling brave. “Fair’s fair,” she hears herself intone, and oh thank heaven, she still knows how to flirt after all, even here in this bedroom naked as the day she was born.

Jack doesn’t return her smile. Instead he obeys in silence, not even bothering with the knot, two thumbs under his waistband and a quick skimming motion and then he’s standing back up and—

“Oh,” Elizabeth says. She knew they fit together like key and lock, but she had never quite pictured—well. 

“See?” He laughs sheepishly. “Not as pretty as you.”

His voice is a tease but when Elizabeth looks at him his face is completely aflame, a blush spreading dark and ruddy across his ears and down the back of his neck, and for the first time she recognizes that he’s desperately shy, shyer even than her. That, more than anything, makes her reach for him.

“ _Elizabeth,_ ” he gasps, and she understands that she shocked him but she still can’t make herself let go—it feels so strange in her hand, like nothing she’s ever touched, hot and firm with thin, delicate skin. It’s _Jack_ , and he’s her _husband_. She wants to touch every inch of him.

“Is that—” Elizabeth breaks off, making a loose fist around him. He's warmer here than everywhere else, coarse dark hair and the feeling of his stomach jumping against the back of her hand. “Does that hurt?”

“ _No_ ,” Jack says immediately, hips jerking, pushing himself into her grip. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he sounds so helpless. “I—”

“No, don’t—” Elizabeth says, stealing another glance down between them. “Can you—” She wants to please him, wants him to feel like she felt with his mouth on her breast—oh, God in heaven, she wants she wants she wants. “Can you show me?”

Jack’s eyes widen. “Sweetheart,” he says, but then he actually _does_ , wrapping his long fingers around the outside of hers and squeezing more tightly than Elizabeth would have thought to, dragging her fist up and down his length. He must do this then, take himself in hand; Elizabeth thinks of Onan in the Bible, of schoolboy chatter, and flushes. 

After a moment Jack pulls her hand away, pressing it flat against his chest instead. “Oh Lord, Elizabeth, stop now,” he breathes, knocking his forehead against hers. His heart is beating very fast under her palm.

Elizabeth touches his face. “Not good?” she asks, even though something slippery and squirming in her belly already knows the answer.

Jack laughs instead of replying, turning his head to kiss her fingertips. “Can I?” he says, reaching for her waist with slightly sticky hands. Elizabeth’s are sticky too, tacky, and Lord, everything about this is so surprising and odd. She’s so distracted that at first she doesn't realise what he’s asking.

“Fair’s fair,” Jack adds, eyes twinkling, and she gets the distinct sense that he’s laughing at her. Elizabeth swallows a mouthful of nerves and nods.

He sits back down on the edge of the bed to do it, tugging her between his knees. “It hurt last time, didn’t it?” he asks, touching across her belly and then down her thighs, his hands curving around her legs to pull them apart slightly; Elizabeth clutches at his shoulders and nods. She thinks of when they first met, him showing off his investigative skills, _not your dress and not disappointed I came to dinner_ , and feels very warm.

“But it doesn’t always, right?” he continues, studying her face, and then suddenly his hand is _right there_ , cupping her.

Elizabeth’s breath leaves her in a noisy exhale. “No,” she manages. She’s starting to perspire, under her arms and behind her knees, shamefully unladylike. “Not always.”

“Good,” he says, sounding satisfied. He pulls her closer, resting his head on her belly. “How does this feel?” He presses one finger lightly against the seam of her, stroking gently.

Elizabeth starts so hard and so abruptly she thinks it's a miracle her knee doesn't catch him straight in the nose. “It’s good,” she gasps, her fingers tightening in his hair. “It's—yes. It's good.”

“Are you sure?” Jack asks, peering up at her closely. Elizabeth nods. It's almost too good, truthfully, too _much,_  like something inside her is opening, a hundred different sensations flooding in. Elizabeth knows he can feel how slippery she is, but he doesn't seem put off by it. The opposite, in fact. He rubs at her, just a bit, and Elizabeth jumps again.

“Elizabeth,” he says, and his voice is so gentle. “Talk to me.”

“I don't know if I can stand up while you do this,” she blurts.

Oh, that makes him smile. He looks—Jack Thornton!—he looks so  _pleased_ with himself. “All right,” he says, perfectly calm and logical. “Let’s lie down?”

They settle on top of the blankets instead of underneath them, Jack propping himself on his elbow alongside her. The warmth of his body is reassuring. “Better?” he asks, and Elizabeth nods. “Now then...”

It’s good. It’s _so_ good, his fingertips sliding over dips and ridges and whorls Elizabeth hadn’t even known she had, rubbing and stroking. One place in particular feels so sensitive that she bucks, unable to help herself.

“All right?” Jack asks softly. He’s brought his face very close to hers, studying her reactions. When Elizabeth nods he touches her there again, and then again, and _oh—_

“ _J_ _ack_ ,” she gasps, clutching at the quilt because she needs to hold onto to something, and if she grabs his hand he may stop. It’s so good it’s nearly painful, deeply sensitive, almost like pressing on a bruise. Her breath is coming so fast she’s close to panting and she wants to writhe, to move, to do _something_ because she can’t stand this, she aches so much and in so many places. Oh Lord, she _needs_.

“Elizabeth?” he asks after she gasps for the third time in a row, and it takes her a minute to realise it’s a question instead of an exclamation. When she opens her eyes he’s staring at her, a faint crease between his eyebrows. “Is this—should I stop now?”

Elizabeth gasps again, but only because she's afraid he’ll stop. “No,” she says, and now she does put her hand over his, her hips arching into the air as if they've got a mind of their own. Oh, what kind of woman must he think she is? “No, Jack, please don’t—”

“I won't,” Jack promises, using his free hand to push her hair out of her eyes. It must look a fright, frizzy and damp around her face, but Elizabeth can't bring herself to care. He's as good to his word, rubbing harder now, more purposefully, everything wet and taut and coiled tighter and tighter until finally—

It bursts all at once inside her, wave after wave of it, the pleasure pulsing through her body like nothing she's ever known before. Elizabeth throws an arm over her face. Jack stops rubbing in surprise but it hardly matters, his hand held in place by hers and her hips chasing after the feeling like an instinct, her whole body thrumming with something age old and base.

“Jack,” she says, before it’s even hardly finished. She’s fumbling at his shoulders, pulling now. “Come here, come—” She can’t bring herself to look him in the eyes.

Jack comes, making a series of soothing noises like she’s a spooked horse, crawling up to cover her with his body. "That didn’t hurt either, right?” he whispers into her ear, smiling like he already knows. Elizabeth shakes her head no and buries her face in his neck. It’s happened to her before in her life, that feeling, alone in the dark of her bedroom and once with Jack in the meadow, but never has it been quite so acute. She wants to hide herself and never come out.

“Elizabeth.” He’s laughing and nudging at her gently, but she clings to him fast, his good broad chest and shoulders. “Elizabeth,” he says, cajoling now, and then he’s tussling with her a little, hands at her wrists and her waist. She giggles despite herself, fighting back. Finally he has her pinned, on her back with her arms by her sides. His grip is very strong.

“Good, right?” he says clearly, looking her straight in the face. Elizabeth closes her eyes and nods.

Jack swallows audibly. “Good.” His voice is darker now, lower, and Elizabeth squirms against his hold. “Wait,” he tells her, tightening his fingers around her wrists. “I want to look at you.”

Elizabeth opens her eyes. “You’ve seen me,” she says, a little archly. She thinks of the pretend aptitude test she gave him during her first few months in Coal Valley, _pay me a compliment_.

Jack doesn't, but his open-mouthed stare is enough. “You look different lying down."

Elizabeth laughs. “I look different all sorts of ways.” She certainly doesn’t know why he prefers this view, all of her spread out and settling, but then he pulls her arms up over her head and she gasps.

“Different this way too,” he says distractedly, like he's making a note to himself, before reaching down to mouth at her breasts. The length of him is poking at her thigh, hard and desperate. “Elizabeth, please, can I—”

Elizabeth almost nods her head right off. “Yes,” she says, her thighs opening and her knees coming up before she even knows what she’s doing, her body making room for him all on its own. “Yes, of course.”

It hurts again as he pushes inside, truthfully, but not nearly as much as it did last night, everything warm and wet and slippery down in between them. And it's tempered besides by the sounds Jack is making, his low private groans in her ear. It makes her feel like she's taking part in something ancient. It makes her feel—Elizabeth blushes at the thought of it— _womanly_.

“You feel so good,” he tells her, head buried in the crook of her neck in what she already thinks of as his spot, her husband’s. She runs her fingertips up and down his spine. She tries scratching with her nails, just lightly, and Jack bites at her shoulder in response. Elizabeth gasps—in surprise, with desire—as he smooths over the spot with his tongue.

She's expecting it this time, the hot pulse between her legs and the groan he lets out when it happens, his whole body tensing under her hands. He strings her name and God’s together in a litany, blasphemous and sweet all at once. Elizabeth turns her head to kiss his ear, bury her nose in his mussed hair.

“No, stay,” she says when he starts to clamber off, tightening her arms and legs around him and redirecting his head to her breast instead. She thinks she could sleep like this, with a little adjusting. She thinks she could stay like this a long time. “I like you here.”

Jack lies back down obediently, his cheek pillowed, his body warm and sated on top of hers. “So, so far marriage is going well,” he says, a little breathless. Elizabeth laughs.


End file.
